SASKY MAN FIGHTS OFF MOOSE
Saskatchewan resident goes toe-to-toe with large moose.
Hunt Source
Shawn Tuffnell didn’t first glass this bull at 200 yards. He met it on the porch.
On a late‑January morning near Bienfait, Sask., the 37‑year‑old hunter heard his 70‑year‑old mom, Angie, scream from the yard. When he stepped outside, it wasn’t the kind of moose encounter anyone expects around the farm. A mature bull was standing directly over her, chest hanging above her body, locked on and inside arm’s length.
There was no time for bear spray, warning shots, or playing the wind. Tuffnell charged, yelling to break the bull’s focus. The moose held its ground. With nothing else handy, he went hands‑on, driving a punch into the bull’s lip hard enough to cut it. The animal didn’t give an inch.
He grabbed the closest thing that resembled a weapon a yellow shovel by the door and started swinging. That finally broke the bull off his mother. It turned, dropped the hammer, and came straight for him, driving Tuffnell backward toward the house.
The fight spilled into the front entryway a space meant for boots and dog leashes, not over 1,000 pounds of fired‑up moose. Tuffnell locked a grip high on the bull’s neck and kept hammering shots into its face, trying to blind it and keep it from getting back to his mother in the yard.
When it was obvious that fists and a shovel weren’t going to end it, he started yelling for his mother’s boyfriend to wake up and bring a gun. The man handed him a rifle, instantly turning the encounter from improvised hand‑to‑hand defence into a point‑blank kill situation.
Tuffnell let go, shouldered the rifle in tight quarters, and drove a round into one eye, then the other, intent on shutting down the bull’s vision and ending the attack. He kept shooting 15 or 16 more rounds by his estimate until the animal finally went down. Even then, he reloaded several times and continued to put bullets into the same spot on the head, making absolutely sure the moose was finished before sending his mother into the garage.
Only after he was certain the threat was neutralized did he turn to first aid. He loaded his mother into a vehicle and headed for the hospital, where staff treated a puncture wound in her calf likely from when the bull redirected its charge from her to him. The wound tracked through skin and tissue but missed the muscle. His sister, working a shift at the hospital that day, heard the story as the family came through the doors.
Once his mom was stable, Tuffnell did what seasoned Saskatchewan hunters and trappers are expected to do after a defensive kill. He called the provincial TIP line, reported the incident, and waited on conservation officers. They took the carcass and shipped it to Saskatoon for a necropsy.
The Canadian Wildlife Health Co‑operative’s exam showed a bull that was completely tapped out. Fat reserves were gone. Its stomachs were jammed with coarse, straw‑like material the kind of low‑grade feed moose resort to only when quality browse is long gone. Lab tests ruled out rabies and chronic wasting disease. Investigators concluded the bull was almost certainly starving and likely pushing into the yard for shelter and any scrap of warmth during a deep‑freeze that had driven temps below –40 C.
Tuffnell, who’s been bluff‑charged and crowded by moose twice before, said this animal was different. The others had broken off with yelling or a warning shot. This bull acted like a desperate, cornered survivor, locked into a last‑ditch drive to live not a standard defensive or territorial rush.
His mother’s leg has healed, but the lesson remains. She now hesitates before stepping into the dark yard. For hunters and rural residents alike, it’s a reminder that even on familiar ground, a thin, cold‑stressed moose can turn a simple walk to the garage into a full‑on, close‑quarters fight for your life.